A really sad tale, but amazingly depressing that you can work as an ATC for arguably the most difficult forms of civil aviation, with no planning, aids, or procedures -- all without qualifications.
> but amazingly depressing that you can work as an ATC for arguably the most difficult forms of civil aviation, with no planning, aids, or procedures -- all without qualifications.
Your wording is ambiguous to me.
Are you talking about the “air boss” here?
ATCs get plenty of training and are qualified — several months of training plus 2-3 years of additional classroom work and OJT. Fairly high attrition rate as well (iirc).
I believe they meant that the air boss has a role like an ATC, in a more challenging situation (because you want to keep aircraft somewhat close). Whilst at the same time the air boss doesn't need anywhere near the same training as ATCs do.
Yeah unscripted low-altitude aviation control is something a JTAC would do in combat. This is such a high-risk way to manage aircraft over a crowd of civilians, it's shocking to hear this is normalized.
Also i don’t really understand why does it need to be improvised. The audience wants to see roaring airplanes flying by. I understand that. But why can’t the paths be pre-agreed?
